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Windows Central

Technology

Richard Devine

The worst thing about Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is that they built a straight-up cheat into the game [UPDATE]

ABS Best Buy Treyarch

A render of the new Nuketown map in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 showing an operator jumping through the air sideways while aiming. .

What you need to know

Nobody likes hackers in competitive multiplayer games, but Treyarch has built a perk into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 that's essentially a legal cheat.
The Recon specialization allows a player to see the location of every single opponent on the map for a few seconds after they respawn, even through walls.
It's extremely overpowered, and while some are using it, lots in the community agree something needs to be done about it.
[UPDATE] The November 4 patch notes state the Recon specialist ability has been nerfed to only last 1.5 seconds, with plans for additional adjustments to slated for the November 14 launch of Season 1.

I'm having a blast in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. So much so that I'd put it up there with Black Ops 3 as one of my favorites in the whole franchise. While Treyarch has largely knocked it out of the park, it isn't perfect.

One feature where the game falls wildly short of the mark (as agreed by our pals over at PC Gamer) is with the Recon specialization. It applies automatically if you run three blue perks on your loadout, and it is, to put it bluntly, legalized cheating.

If you haven't come across it yet, take a read of its description:

"Enemies can be seen through walls for a short time after respawn; a HUD edge indicator flashes when an enemy is outside your view; leave no death skulls when killing enemies."

No, you didn't read it wrong. Treyarch has put wallhacks into Black Ops 6 as an actual feature. It's appalling, and anyone using it should feel ashamed.

If you run this in Black Ops 6 you're a bad person and should feel ashamed. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Unlike an illegal wallhack, the effects are only present for a brief time. And at least since it only applies on respawn, it doesn't give an unfair advantage in Search and Destroy, since you don't respawn in that mode. But still, it's pretty bad, and extremely overpowered.

Not only that, but the HUD lights up like a Christmas Tree when an enemy is nearby, but you can't see them. Having seen a few killcams where a player was running Recon, it's absolutely an unfair advantage. In one, I was coming up behind a player, and they literally snapped to my location when the HUD flashed and hit with their godforsaken sniper rifle.

You can see it in action in the clip below, which was posted to Reddit.

Who thought this perk was ever a good idea? from r/blackops6

As you see in the clip, a player respawned, saw where all the players were and subsequently fired off a headshot kill through a wall which simply would not have happened without running Recon.

I'd like to know who gave this the sign-off in its current form. Obviously, there are those who love it (even if they are the worst), but large chunks of the community also hate it. The November 4 patch for Black Ops 6 has addressed player concerns about the perk by nerfing the duration that enemy players are highlighted from two seconds down to 1.5 seconds. According to the Black Ops 6 patch notes, Treyarch has planned additional adjustments to the Recon specialization for the launch of Season 1.

It is also worth noting that the perk is a specialization, which requires users to equip three perks from the same specialization class to equip. The Recon specialization requires players to choose three blue perks. A sample class would consist of Ghost, Engineer, and Cold-Blooded which would then grant Recon as a bonus. There are three specializations currently available in Black Ops 6: Enforcer (red perks), Recon (blue perks), and Strategist (green perks) each with their own benefits. Recon's visual indicators are only there for a second and a half after a respawn, and can not be triggered or activated again during a single life.